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Muzee UBB

Research

Alexandru Duma Museum

Research to date has revealed that artist Alexandru Duma is not an isolated case of his time but rather exemplifies a broader phenomenon among war participants with an artistic education. Consequently, the documentation and research activities of the Alexandru Duma Museum are geared towards a dual objective: on the one hand, to reconstruct the artist’s unique path based on available archival materials, and on the other hand, to integrate him into a broader ensemble of artists from the front lines of World War I, highlighting the parallels as well as the particularities of each.

University History Museum

One of the essential missions of the BBU History Museum is to conduct research on university, intellectual, and cultural history. Recently, the museum staff has been involved in the ERC project Literary Translations at War: Mapping World War 2 in Europe (1939-45).

Among the collaborations aimed at opening up new avenues of research and promoting the history of the University of Cluj are the partnership agreement with the Bistrița-Năsăud County Service of the National Archives and the agreement that established the Network for Research on Women’s History and the Promotion of Gender Studies in Romania (Rețeaua pentru cercetarea istoriei femeilor și promovarea studiilor de gen în spațiul românesc (IFSGen)). The network is the result of a partnership between George Emil Palade University of Medicine, Pharmacy, Science, and Technology in Târgu Mureș, Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, through the Academic Cultural Heritage Department (DPCU) and the Research Center for Territorial Identities and Development (ITD) at the Faculty of Geography, and George Barițiu Institute of History of the Romanian Academy, Cluj-Napoca Branch. One of the main research topics developed in this program is dedicated to the presence of women in the Cluj University environment.

Paleontology and Stratigraphy Museum

The research activity at the Paleontology and Stratigraphy Museum is carried out in two dimensions: scientific research, through specialists from Romania and abroad, aimed at studying the scientific collections in the museum’s heritage, and museological research, carried out by the museum staff, which focuses on the social role of the museum within the local community, modern exhibition methods, modern preservation, restoration, recording, and digitization techniques for the material in the paleontological collections, etc.

Useful links:

Professional paleontology associations:

Societatea paleontologilor din România (SPR) (Romanian Paleontologists Association)

Asociația internațională de paleontologie (IPA) (International Paleontology Association)

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)

National natural science museums:

Muzeul Național de Geologie (National Museum of Geology)

Muzeul Național de Istorie Naturală „Grigore Antipa” (Grigore Antipa National Museum of Natural History)

International databases:

http://www.fossilworks.org/

https://paleobiodb.org/#

https://www.gbif.org

The Museum of the Holocaust in Northern Transylvania

The research activity in which the Holocaust Museum is involved includes the following steps:

David Prodan Memorial Museum

The David Prodan Memorial Museum makes the archive and library of historian David Prodan available to researchers, subject to compliance with the procedure for accessing the museum collections of the Academic Cultural Heritage Department.

The David Prodan Memorial Museum is preparing the editing of documents from its archive to produce a volume that will highlight the correspondence exchanged over the years between David Prodan and various personalities. The museum team plans to create a commemorative volume dedicated to David Prodan, featuring contributions from the guests at the David Prodan Meetings.

The David Prodan Memorial Museum is also dedicated to the scientific investigation of popular culture, encompassing both traditional and modern expressions. Historical research is supported by sociological, anthropological, philological, and artistic approaches, which are brought to life in the museum through lectures, conferences, interviews, and round tables supported by specialists in the social and humanities fields. The latest discoveries and theories, along with overviews of previous research results, are disseminated in our museum, which is aimed at both the academic community and the general public.

Mineralogy Museum

The Mineralogy Museum is involved in several internal projects, including the accurate identification of mineral samples in the museum through various investigative methods and updating the status of the mineral species it holds. In addition, we aim to make the museum’s impressive mineralogical heritage accessible to all specialists, particularly to those abroad, by including and presenting the museum’s samples in various international databases.

The museum is also involved as a partner in a collaboration project with several entities, which aims to create a database of minerals from caves around the world.

The museum cooperates with other museums with a similar profile in Romania:

Recommended mineralogy databases are https://mineralogy-ima.org/Minlist.htm

  • Here, you can find both the regularly updated list of mineral species approved by the IMA (International Mineralogical Association) and a database of the properties of various species. https://www.mindat.org/

Zoological Museum

The research areas of our museum staff are as follows:

  • monitoring the conservation status of Lepidoptera species of community interest in Romania, based on Article 17 of the Habitats Directive 92/43/EEC;
  • inventory and mapping of Lepidoptera species in Cluj County;
  • distribution of the species Eumedonia eumedon (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae) at the national level;
  • inventory and mapping of Lepidoptera species in the Iron Gates Natural Park (Parcul Natural Porțile de Fier);
  • geographical distribution of bird species;
  • morphological and physiological adaptations of birds to various environments;
  • variation in the structure and quality of bird plumage.

Vivarium

The scientific activity conducted at the BBU Vivarium is centered on student scientific research.

Since its establishment in 2001, we have motivated students interested in herpetology to engage in fundamental and applied research activities, to familiarize them with the principles of academic writing, and to inspire them for future scientific projects.

Following the appreciation and enthusiasm shown for this type of initiative, and out of a desire to develop the capabilities offered to students, we successfully set up a herpetology laboratory in 2017 by renovating a previously dilapidated and unusable space and equipping it with specialized infrastructure.

Thus, under the guidance of Dr. Octavian Craioveanu, dozens of scientific experiments have been carried out in this laboratory in the fields of animal welfare, behavioral enrichment, nutrition, ethology, personality, instincts, and learning, which have been capitalized on through the publication of five scientific articles, three of which in ISI impact factor journals.

https://biozoojournals.ro/nwjz/content/v13n2/nwjz_e171501_Craioveanu.pdf

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/zoo.21374

https://herpetozoa.pensoft.net/article/35627

https://studiabiologia.reviste.ubbcluj.ro/index.php/studiabio/article/view/36

https://studiabiologia.reviste.ubbcluj.ro/index.php/studiabio/article/view/110